


The Morning After

by Eliyes



Category: Booster Gold (Comics), Justice League International (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-27 17:56:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/981909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliyes/pseuds/Eliyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Booster wakes up feeling great when he's pretty sure he should be hungover. Meanwhile, Skeets is not feeling at all himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted on Livejournal February 16, 2006.

Booster Gold woke up in the morning and felt pleasantly alert – cheerful, chipper, energetic! All systems go. He was normally a morning person, but the night before he had engaged in a variety of dubious merry-making activities and consumed rather more alcohol than he usually did. He couldn’t remember quite why. In any case, he was surprised to feel so good, but it was a pleasant enough surprise.

He got up and left the room in JLA headquarters where he’d woken – it was a guest room, since he didn’t live on the moon but was only visiting, but it was _his_ guest room, with his suitcase and everything. He headed down the hall, whistling a happy tune.

Soon enough, his keen olfactory senses detected a whiff of soy-bacon in the air. Obviously, one of the vegetarian members of the JLA was up and about and fixing food. Curiously, he wasn’t hungry. Perhaps that was for the best. The sight of food might trigger hangover response. He paused in the hall, just to be sure the _thought_ of food wasn’t about to do unpleasant things to his digestive system, but no, everything seemed fine.

Booster zipped around a corner and travelled somewhat aimlessly around the base. He was heading roughly in the direction of the monitor room. It occurred to him that it was possible there was some overarching explanation for his lack of nausea and headache; perhaps a magically-inclined member of the group had removed the affliction, or there had been some special ingredient in the celebratory imbibables.

He passed John Stewart in the hallway, and greeted the Green Lantern pleasantly.

“Good morning, John!” he said, winking jovially. John blinked, and then murmured a good morning over his coffee. (Strangely, the coffee did not seem appetizing or unappetizing, much like the bacon.) Booster reflected on this as he continued down the hall, wondering if perhaps he was just having a good morning. Perhaps John was slow when he was hungover. It bore thinking on.

Booster made good time down the hall, managing a quick dodge as a red blur passed him. No doubt the Flash was on his way to the teleporters, either for some important mission or to see his lovely wife, Linda. They had only met a few times, but Booster had seen her on television when she was still a newshound, and privately he thought she was an impressive woman, just the kind to bring Wally to heel.

He entered the monitor room, after some slight difficulty in getting the door to respond. Green Arrow the younger – Connor Hawke, son of Oliver Queen – was sitting at the monitor station. He was speaking to someone, so Booster politely hung back, within view but not interrupting.

“That _is_ on the strange side, I suppose,” Connor was saying. He glanced at Booster and nodded, holding up a finger to indicate that while he had seen his visitor, it would be a moment before he could converse. That was fine. Booster bobbed his head and started scanning the news feeds on the wall. He became engrossed by coverage of an electronics exhibition in Norway. He was always interested to see technology’s advance, trying to see where and how the technology of his own time had come from. There were some ideas he had observed fall out of favour in his time in the 20th and early 21st centuries that he wish had been pursued. Ah, well.

Eventually, he turned his attention back to Connor, who was gazing at him calmly.

“Good morning, Connor,” he said.

“Good morning,” Connor replied. “How are you?”

“I feel very good!” Booster replied. “In fact, I was wondering if perhaps there was some reason why I feel so good. I fully expected to be hungover.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I had a lot to drink last night,” he said, somewhat apologetically, recalling that the archer had not been at the party. “I was wondering if someone had been kind enough to remove the affliction from my person?”

“It’s possible,” Connor said thoughtfully. “I think you could go to the medical bay to find out. Actually, you may want to go there anyway. Blue Beetle just contacted to let me know there might be something amiss with Skeets.”

“Skeets?” Booster felt a cold chill. “My faithful robotic companion from the future, Skeets?”

“The same. Apparently he’s not feeling at all himself. Blue Beetle is trying to examine him, but he’s not cooperating. Perhaps you could calm him down.”

“Oh, I’m sure I could,” Booster replied, wobbling with worry. “I shall go there straight away! Good day!”

Booster felt bad for abandoning Connor so quickly, but he was sure that he would understand; this was an emergency. He flew into the medbay, quickly scanning it for signs of Blue Beetle. He spotted him, and was waved over.

“NOW!” Beetle cried when Booster was close enough, and something heavy tackled him from behind. Shrilling with terror, Booster tried to escape, but was caught again. He caught his reflection but could not see what was grappling him. An invisible attacker, perhaps? That had hypnotized his friend, Blue Beetle?

Even then, the very rumpled Ted Kord – Blue Beetle’s alter ego – was approaching him with some sort of device.

“Now just hold still,” he was saying. “You’ll feel much better soon.”

Booster cursed at him, but could not break free, and Ted injected him with something. He could not believe this treachery! This was unconscionable!

“Alright,” Ted said to his attacker. “Let him go. It should start working real soon.”

Suddenly, he was free, and he jumped into the air with a will. The reflection caught his eye, and he saw himself sitting on the floor with Skeets hovering above him. But that wasn’t right. He wasn’t sitting, he was…

He was…

He moved closer to the reflection, and gazed at his golden self with a very queer sensation.

“…How strange,” he said.

“You had a virus,” Ted said.

He turned and looked at Ted, then at Booster, sitting on the floor.

“I’m terribly sorry, sir,” he said. “I think… I thought I was you.”

“That’s okay, Skeets,” Booster said, wiping at his face and looking pale and unkempt. “We all have our off mornings.”  



End file.
